Toadstone
From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project
The toad was believed to hold a jewel within its skull called a toadstone, which was held to be capable of detecting the presence of poison, warning its owner by becoming warm to the touch, or if set into a ring it would become paler in color. It was also said to be an antidote to poison & bites, and capable of causing houses from burning & boats from sinking.
It was obtained by extracting it from the toads head or by causing it to vomit it out. One favoured method was to hang the toad in the chimney by its hind legs & catch what was expelled from its mouth in a dish of yellow wax. Francis Barrett in his book "The Magus" outlines the following method:
"Paracelsus and Helmont both agree, that in the toad, although so irreverent to the sight of man, and so noxious to the touch, and of such strong violent antipathy to the blood of man, I say, out of this hatred Divine Providence hath prepared us a remedy against manifold diseases most inimical to man's nature. The toad hath a natural aversion to man; and this scaled image, or idea of hatred, he carries in his head, eyes, and most powerfully throughout his whole body: now that the toad may be highly prepared for a sympathetic remedy against the plague or other disorders, such as the ague, falling sicknesses, and various others; and that the terror of us, and natural inbred hatred may the more strongly be imprinted and higher ascend in the toad, we must hang him up aloft in a chimney, by the legs, and set under him a dish of yellow wax, to receive whatsoever may come down, or fall from his mouth; let him hang in this position, in our sight, for three or four days, at least till he is dead; now we must not omit frequently to be present in sight of the animal so that his fears and inbred terror of us, with the ideas of strong hatred, may encrease even unto death. So you have a most powerful remedy in this one toad, for the curing of forty thousand persons infected with the pest or plague."
The Toadstone is an example of an animal concretion.
